With just over a week to go for the Super Rugby competition to kick off, there is confirmation today that none of the television stations in the country have secured the rights to show all the Super Rugby matches.
It has been confirmed that free to air TV stations, Fiji One and FBC will show two live matches every week.
This is part of the NZ government's deal with SANZAR.
The coverage will include free‑to‑air access to selected Super Rugby matches, Rugby Championship Tests and ITM Cup matches, as well as news, documentaries and entertainment.
The New Zealand government will provide approximately 400,000 NZ dollars a year in additional funding to support the initiative.
Many rugby fans have been calling Fijivillage, saying that they want to know why no TV station in the country is showing all the Super Rugby matches from next week.
Fiji Television Limited which has been showing Super Rugby since 1996 says they are still waiting for the rights holders, Digicel to offer the sub leasing of the rights to the TV stations in Fiji.
CEO of Fijian Holdings Limited which is the majority shareholder of Fiji TV, Nouzab Fareed says they cannot do much at this stage as the blanket rights for the Super Rugby competition is held by Digicel.
Fareed says they are ready to purchase the rights if that opportunity comes through within the next few days.
Meanwhile there is still no confirmation on when Digicel will get a license to operate pay TV, Sky Pacific.
It was earlier highlighted that Digicel has the Super Rugby rights and this would be part of the content of Sky Pacific when they take over the operations from Fiji TV.
The sale has not gone through as Digicel has to agree to the conditions set by the Communications Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
One of the conditions includes no local content on the Pay TV channels operated by a foreign owned company.
When questioned by Fijivillage, Digicel Fiji CEO Darren McLean confirmed that they have agreed to all license conditions with Government.
He says they have had some queries on the conditions and these are all now clarified.
We also asked him about Digicel's plan for Fiji knowing that the Super Rugby competition kicks off next Friday.
McLean says Digicel expects to provide live games to free to air stations in Fiji but this announcement has not yet been made.
No further details have been revealed about this.
McLean says the sale of Sky Pacific to Digicel is proceeding and a new transition date will be announced very soon.
